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Fitness Grade 3-5 TEKS 1B: Describe ways to improve personal fitness Level: 3rd Grade Background Information: Research has shown that if you work out a specific muscle group with adequate rest in between, then you will improve your health of that muscle area. Exercises that involve the whole body will promote improvement in overall health if you work on them frequently during the week. Being active and exercising is important to living a healthy lifestyle. Push-ups condition your whole body. These exercises work nearly every upper body muscle and some lower ones, too. You probably know push-ups strengthen your chest. But they also build shoulder, arm and core strength. Push-ups provide a total body workout you can do anywhere. Crunches work out your abdominal muscles. They help you maintain good posture and prevent you from back injuries. Crunches also are a good form of exercise that you can do without other equipment. Wall sits are a form of exercise for your legs. To do a wall sit, all you need is a wall or something to lean on. These are quick exercises you can do anywhere to maintain healthy legs. Correct Forms: Push-ups:
Sit-ups: Created by: Sarah Levin, Austin Steiger, Tara Henry, Lindsey Meyer Coppell High School Anatomy 2011
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Wall-sits:
Objective: The purpose of this lab is to test if consistent repetition and practice of exercise can improve performance and ability. Hypothesis: Exercising a group of muscles through consistent repetition may have an effect on athletic ability. Duration: 15-20 minutes (setup time: none) Experiment’s Run Time: 6 classes (2 weeks) Take-Down Time: none Materials: Created by: Sarah Levin, Austin Steiger, Tara Henry, Lindsey Meyer Coppell High School Anatomy 2011
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-Timer (optional) -paper/data table -pencil Procedure: 1. Pick between the exercises of either sit-ups, push-ups, or wall sits to test for the next 6 classes and choose a partner to work with. 2. Depending on which exercise was chosen, do as many push-ups or sit-ups as you can before feeling fatigued, or hold a wall sit as long as you can before you feel fatigued. Make sure the partner is keeping count of push-ups or sit-ups, or is timing how long the wall sit is held. 3. Record in a data table on a sheet of paper how many repetitions were completed or how long the exercise was held. 4. Repeat steps two and three with a day of rest in between for 6 classes of Physical Education. 5. With the data, find the percent change ((new # - old #)/new #)x100. 6. Observe the results of the data you recorded along with the calculated percent change. 7. Conclude. Data Table: Circle Activity Performed: Name
Day 1
sit-ups Day 2
Day 3
push-ups Day 4
Day 5
wall-sits Day 6
Data Analysis: What did you notice about your muscles? (soreness, stronger, bigger, etc) Did doing a certain exercise every other day for six classes improve the amount or time or how many reps that you could do? What was the calculated percent change? Does the
Created by: Sarah Levin, Austin Steiger, Tara Henry, Lindsey Meyer Coppell High School Anatomy 2011
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percent change mean you improved or decreased your ability? Do you think continuing these exercises will make your strength increase even more?
Conclusion: Did you feel like you were in better shape after the six classes? Could you do this with all exercises to increase your overall health? How does consistent practice effect your performance ability?
Challenge yourself to continue these exercises on your own to help gain strength in your muscles and stay happy and healthy!
Created by: Sarah Levin, Austin Steiger, Tara Henry, Lindsey Meyer Coppell High School Anatomy 2011
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Teacher Notes: Your students are encouraged to actively seek their own answer to the hypothesis provided above through conducting a long term experiment with a partner. To change this lab to make it more compatible for different age groups change these aspects of the experiment: ● Individual experimentation or bigger groups ● More difficult exercises (pull-ups, sprints, up/downs etc.) ● Allow participants to test more than one activity at a time ● Have students graph their results for further comparisons ● Have a discussion of results after lab is complete Please continue to encourage your students to exercises after this lab is complete as to promote healthy lifestyles.
Created by: Sarah Levin, Austin Steiger, Tara Henry, Lindsey Meyer Coppell High School Anatomy 2011